Friday, January 30, 2009

Truth, Being Stranger than Fiction

So the Matron has been a bit blue, as of late, about her writing. Specifically, about her career as a novelist.

She's raked this issue over the coals on this blog before. But she hasn't been writing. Has not been revising that much lauded but unpublished manuscript into a Young Adult novel, as advised. It's not that she thinks such revision a bad idea, she just hasn't found the fuel to start working, which is unlike her.

(this is a woman who wrote a dissertation and two novels in three years--and she STARTED when her oldest was 3 and ended one week before giving birth to a third child--when the fuel was flowing)

Her writing road block has bothered and depressed the Matron. Partly, it's time. There's that full-time job to consider. Oh -- and those children. But it's more. She just doesn't know what.

So an unsettling, ugly feeling has been following the Matron around, all over. It's with her when she slides between the sheets at night, while she's tapping her fingers at a red light or sitting down to dinner. The ugly cast has not made her much fun at parties, either.

The entire situation seemed untenable last Tuesday night. At her wit's end with unhappiness, she was driving Stryker home from his very successful Science Project Interrogation (more on that later). He did well, finishing with the scrutiny at about 9 pm.

Here is the despondent, yearning Matron, driving yet another child through a pitch black and mind-numbing winter night, with temperatures well below zero. Stryker was listening to his iPod, lost.

So she said something like this --and it was indeed sort of a ramble because the Matron believes in covering more bases than exist-- out loud: "Okay God, if you're there, I need a sign. If I'm not working on the old novel, is that because I should be working on a new book --the Matron-family stuff or something other than the old material? Am I supposed to be switching to something new? Should I even be writing!!? I just need a SIGN."

Just as those last words floated out of her mouth, she pulled to a gentle stop at a red light -- right behind a car with an Iowa lisence plate that read: W R I T E.

Because God-Buddha-Allah-Oprah-Universe understands that some people don't just need a sign, but a big fat thump on the head. She got the message.

I shared your story with my yoga classes today, lesson being that the universe is always showing us the way and while we don't all get the very obvious nudge that you received, it is there and a quiet mind will allow you to see/hear/notice the answer. (I preach it baby, not so good on the practice...I practically need a billboard to get my "sign")

Being a big believer in signs, I've got one hung one over my desk. It, too, says WRITE.

While not as fantastic a jolt as the one you got at the light, it serves the same purpose for me. It's a reminder to write everyday, even when the well's dry, the words are dreck, and I've got a million other tasks giving me an easy out.

Do that long enough (as I'm sure you know), and eventually a flip will switch. Hope this doesn't sound preachy, but encouraging.